We have a choice at life-defining moments like this.
We can fall to our knees and weep and scream to the cold, uncaring heavens.
Or we can laugh and then ask our toddler to help us pick up what is salvageable.
Believe me, it is healthier for us and the child (children) to laugh first, and then play pick up.
Toddlers thrive on creating disorder. And they do this to young parents who have only recently gotten over their own chaos-producing habits, this miracle having occurred because they recently got a place of their own and decided to become organized. While some young parents may work feverishly to stay at High Cleanliness Level, it may be wiser to make a "pact with the devil" and allow cleanliness and orderliness to slide a little. This, I admit, is extremely hard, especially for many women.
I do believe that a woman must have invented the phrase "Cleanliness is next to godliness." Case in point. This morning I said to my husband at the breakfast table "We have to shower and dress right away."
He looked at me blankly. "Why?"
"Because Danny is coming over to look over the deck he painted that needs a touch-up. He's the professional we hired."
My husband still looked puzzled. "But - I'm going to be working around the house today and I plan to shower afterwards. Why should I look nice for HIM?"
I have been known to pick up my living room and vacuum for Tool Guys coming to paint or do plumbing who walk in, unholster their weapons, and don't even NOTICE how well I prepared for them.
Teenagers also think they invented Chaos Theory. How many many times did I open a teenager's door, look at the interior, close the door, and lean against it and moan? At life defining moments like that, we have a choice.
We can scream, rage, and rant at them for days on end.
We can take away their car keys and never give them back.
We can laugh, remember our own bedrooms at that age (or maybe the way we left our own this morning), talk rationally and calmly with them, and work out a compromise, a "pact with the devil" that cuts them a little Cleanliness and Orderliness slack and cuts us a little "One room less to deal with" slack.
See - disorder isn't always a bad thing. Ask God.
While God undoubtedly brought Cleanliness and Order into the Universe, God also seems to thrive on bringing disorder into our lives, with the enthusiasm of a toddler or teenager. He constantly surprises us with turns and twists in our life journeys that we never expected. Like the person you loved to hate whom you fell in love with. Like the third child when you thought you'd taken every precaution to only have two. Like the job you never in a million years ever thought you'd be doing - but you like it. Like the relative or friend who unexpectedly shows up in town for a visit on the busiest day of your week.
And, to put our children's disorderliness into perspective - we with our sinfulness have brought continuous disorder into God's life more potent than the trouble toddlers and teens cause us. God is always hopping around, having to be on-the-spot creative to bring good out of evil to clean up our messes.
God has choices about what to do with His unruly children too.
He could have screamed with fury, washed His hands of us and walked away, leaving the Universe He created to survive on its own.
Instead He shook His head, sighed, and decided to send us His Son.
And I'm sure that sometimes He laughs at us and says "Come on! You think you've made a mess I can't clean up? Remember. Nothing is impossible with Me."